


In Ruins

by Senor_Sparklefingers, steelneena



Series: Sweet Weather and Peacock Feathers [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (temporary), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Break Up, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:28:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17694110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senor_Sparklefingers/pseuds/Senor_Sparklefingers, https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: The Twins are gone. The fallout is disastrous.





	1. Cold Front

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place before 'Divine Intervention' 'Convergence' and 'Old Ghosts', but after 'The Tale of the De Rolo Twins' and can be read in series order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter written by steelneena

He’s in his workshop when everything finally comes to bear. Vex has been gone for a week, though she’d been gone much, much longer than that. They hadn’t been the same since the search came to its end and they had no children to show for it, dead or alive. Vex cut herself off from everyone, lashing out at the slightest remark. Percy had withdrawn into himself, allowed a frosty chill to overtake his exterior while inside he was bleeding, _bleeding_ with the pain of it. The halls of Whitestone no longer rang with the excitable bell-like laughter of little voices, or echoed with the patter of tiny feet. All light in their lives was snuffed, swift like a candle, their last hopes slipping through their fingers like smoke. Their shared chambers had long grown cold, even hostile; they hardly spoke, but when they did it was clipped and harsh as they took out their pain on one another. Percy welcomed it. Welcomed the biting barbs, the cutting remarks. Welcomed the way her words pierced him like the arrows he made for her. He’d been waiting for her to leave. Waiting for her to finally realize what a poison he was. Waiting for her to walk out.

 _“I’m going on a hunt.”_ She’d said. _“I’ll be back.”_

Such a statement would once have been innocuous, but he knew what it meant. Knew what she’d really been saying. _I’m leaving you. Goodbye._

Finally.

He disappeared into his study for most of that day and when he went up to bed, she was still gone.

Finally.

She was not there when he’d woken. His babies were not crawling over the covers, laughing and poking him, begging him to wake in babbling voices, his wife was not beside him, warm and soft and inviting.

He was alone.

That morning, Percy dressed and went into the workshop. He stood there, looking around the room and within his breast he felt his heart turn to crushed coal, before it flaked away into nothing.

The rage hits him like wildfire. There’s no sound in his ears, just a piercing, tinny ring. He doesn’t hear himself screaming, doesn’t hear as books scatter across the floor, as glass lenses shatter, as finely welded metal sheets clatter and warp, as a hammer goes flying through the window, blowing it out completely, as the wooden stool splinters against the iron stove and the vials and implements and other tools go flying when he lifts the table from its place on the floor with a strength he doesn’t know, tipping it swiftly with a deafening _bang_ to the stone floor.

He doesn’t hear Cassandra as she rushes to the doorway, stilling there to watch the carnage, coldness building within, in effort to protect her own heart.

He hears it when the perfect, black river rock he hurls mindlessly cracks halfway down the center, ricocheting off the steel struts of the kiln.

Percy looks down at his hands, which have been moving of their own accord, his mind lost to the grief, to his anger at his impotence, his helplessness, his loneliness, and sees the small chest in which he’d kept every gift from Lucien. Every rock, every twig. Every beetle’s discarded carapace.

His hands are shaking with adrenaline and the box drops, landing harshly on the ground at his feet.

Deadly silent now, the rage calcifies into something far worse. Something cold and dead. Something to take the place of his heart. He is empty of emotion. Of feeling.

Wordless, Percy pushes past Cassandra. She doesn’t matter.

Nothing matters.

Not anymore.

What’s left of his heart is ice.

* * *

Even after Vex returns, nothing is better. Percy is frozen through and nothing can touch him. At dinners, Cassandra tries to draw him out. He’s all decorum and restraint, all perfect noble posture and frivolous conversation. All business. Vex still doesn’t speak to him and he not to her. Not really at least. Certainly, they converse. The see each other and greet one another but there is no warmth in either of them anymore.

Vex leaves more and more often, though she always returns and is never gone as long as the first time. (She’d come back with red welts on her hands and shoulders, peck marks and talon scars.) Percy disappears into the workshop. He doesn’t bother to set it to rights, merely clears a space, puts the table back and begins to work, methodical and mechanical, like one of Tary’s creations. After all, for all Doty was, he was never alive, and so Percy’s frozen coal heart doesn’t have to beat for him to design and create.

Design and create he does. But first he destroys.

Every schematic for every toy he ever made for his children is burned and all those he was in the process of building are melted down and remade into other things. New things.

They are terrible, monstrous things. Bitter cold steel to match the blood in his veins and the winter in his eyes. Contraptions that have countless rounds, that don’t need to be reloaded. Ones that are set upon a stand and fired rapidly. Ones that can shred a person to ribbons in mere moments.

As he needs space or tools, he gradually clears away the wreckage from his demolition. Here and there he finds what remains: a completed music box for his daughter, a tiny moving bear for his son, and as he does he locks them away in a spare chest. And when the evidence of his fury is completely erased and every reminder that he was ever a father is banished, he locks the chest and melts down the key.

He’ll never need it again anyway.

For within the delicate creations, the portion of his heart that lived in them flutters weakly against its cage, and if he keeps it locked away forever, it can never ever hurt him again.

Four days later he goes up stairs and sits at table with his wife and his sister and he eats and converses, completely untouchable. His mouth and his hands move, but he isn’t there. And all the while beneath them, the evidence of his blackened soul lies gleaming on the workshop table, ready to be used, vengeance written into each component and Percy doesn’t bat an eye, doesn’t betray any indication that he’s sold his soul to the cold master Revenge, if only he can destroy whatever it was that took his children from him.

Percy can wait. He’s patient. He’s used to waiting.

And when the time comes, he’ll be ready.


	2. Cracks in the Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter written by senor_sparklefingers

Once, in a time that seemed so long ago now, she had told him that they could fill in each others broken parts, that they wouldn’t be broken anymore as long as they were together. That after having fought dragons and vampires and would  be gods, after having lost so much along the way, they could face anything together.

 

She had been wrong. She had been so, so wrong.

 

Vex had thought that there would be no worse pain than losing her brother, that nothing would haunt her more than watching him walk off into death with a peaceful look on his face, snowdrops blooming as he left them, left  _ her _ all alone.

Once again, she’d been wrong. Now, every moment was haunted with the image of her children smiling at her, at Luci sleepily waving her and Percy goodbye as they went off to explore Deastock with Tary, at Yasha holding her brother’s hand. At them returning to find the children’s room empty, their babies gone.   
  


Everything since then had been broken, a living hell neither she nor Percy could escape from. Ever since they returned to Whitestone, the searches called off with nothing found, everything had been wrong. Whitestone was no longer home to her, it was merely a place she lived, followed down every corridor by the phantom laughter of her lost children. Everywhere there was a reminder of what they’d lost. A toy left discarded in the library by a children’s book, a nursery filled with empty beds. Lost hopes and broken dreams everywhere they looked.   
  


Vex could barely look at Percy anymore. All those broken pieces they’d tried to mend together had shattered, leaving them with sharp edges that cut every time someone got close. She cut herself off from everyone, snipping and lashing out at any attempt at comfort. It was easier to drive everyone away, because look what happened when you let people in?   
  


You allow yourself to feel happy again, to hope, to take a little bit of joy in life...and watch as everything you ever loved burns around you, until all that is left is ash, taken away by the wind before you can even touch it.

 

Percy had withdrawn into himself in a way he hadn’t since before the Briarwoods, wearing the mask of cold nobility like armor. They couldn’t talk to each other, every conversation turning cruel. Their broken pieces grated against each other now, cutting and biting with every word, every action. She welcomed his cruel words, and knew he welcomed hers.

This was no way to live, in a house haunted by the ghosts of their children, their happiness. A life with nothing but pain and sorrow, hating the one you loved once more than anything.

 

She couldn’t do it anymore. She was so  _ tired _ . Tired of being angry, of having a gaping wound where her heart once was. Tired of seeing her husband and thinking,  _ it should have been you, I would kill you where you stand right now if I thought it would give me my children back _ . Tired of mourning, of hating, of knowing what had been and what would never be again.

 

So she did what she’d done many times before, years ago, when the world had been simpler and it had just been Vex and Vax against everything: she left.

 

_ “I’m going on a hunt,” _ she’d told him. That, at least, was true.  _ “I’ll be back _ ”. That was the lie.

 

Vex was done living like this. Her life may be over now, but she would not spend the rest of her miserable existence like this.

 

She was gone for over a week, closer to two, making her way through the Parchwood, hunting with much more relish than necessary. She kept Trinket in her crystal, not wanting him to see her like this, consumed by grief and rage and sorrow, a mother with no children and nothing left to lose. She didn’t want to see him, her boy, and lash out at him too, destroy the last good thing left in her life with blame and accusations and  _ you were supposed to be watching them, how could you let this happen? _

 

She had no plan, no destination beyond  _ ‘away’ _ , and was satisfied to simply live off her kills, to stay in the woods and hunt and wait until something came along that she couldn’t kill.

 

But apparently, she wasn’t even allowed to have that. Vex had been cooking the meat from her last kill, a large hare she’d trapped while looking for larger game, when she heard the soft cawwing up in the trees. Glancing up, she was faced with a large raven, staring at her with eyes far too intelligent for a normal bird.

For a moment, she considered casing Speak with Animals, but decided against it. She’d tried it before, many times, and it never worked. Vax was neither man nor beast, not dead in the traditional sense but not truly alive either. No matter how many times he showed up, she would never be able to speak with her brother again.   
  


Instead, she sighed, returning to her meal. “What do you want, Vax.”   
  


There was a soft flutter of wings as the bird flew down and perched next to her, cocking its head as it cooed again.

 

“I’m not going back. I know that’s why you’re here, and you can’t convince me to go back there, brother. Whatever Percy and I had is long gone. I’m better out here, you know that.”

 

Another caw, louder and more irritated, argumentative. She could almost her her brother’s voice in it.

 

“You don’t get it, do you?”, she said, a slight edge to her voice as she put her kill down and faced Vax directly. “It’s  _ over _ . We’re  _ done _ . Percy and I can barely be in the same room together, and you expect us to keep living as if nothing has happened?” Vex laughed, a harsh sound with no joy to it. “What do you expect will happen if I go back? That suddenly everything will be fine again? That, that he’ll look at me and decide he forgives me for what happened? That he’ll suddenly just love me again when it’s my fault?”   
  


The bird hopped onto her shoulder, tugging at her ear insistently. She laughed again, swatting at him, ignoring the sharp stings of pain as he clawed and nipped at her hands. “It was my idea, you know that? To go see Tary. To bring the children. To leave them that night with just Trinket and the guards. It’s my fault they’re gone…!”   
  


She swatted at the bird once more, making contact and sending him flying off, though even now, after the abuse and the anger, he still wouldn’t leave her  _ be _ . Vex laughed again, and again, the sounds turning into aching sobs as she collapsed in on herself.

 

“Oh, gods, it’s  _ my fault... _ .I should never have left them alone, we should never have left Whitestone...what sort of mother just leaves her children alone with a bear to guard them? No wonder he hates me now…! I hate me now!”

 

Not for the first time, Vex broke down and sobbed, thinking of her children, of Lucien and Yasha, out there somewhere, alone and scared, no parents to protect them, no family to keep them safe…

 

_ If they were even still alive _ .

 

She looked up and met her brother’s gaze with wild eyes. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you? If they were...if they…”

 

Vax stared at her, blinked, and then cooed quietly, closing his eyes and turning his head away from her. She didn’t know if that meant he couldn’t tell her, or if he simply wouldn’t, but either way, it was not the answer she needed.

She looked at the bird that had once been her brother for a moment longer, before closing her eyes, the tears still streaming down her face. “Of course.  _ She  _ won't let you tell me anything. So I'm left with false hope.”

The bird hopped back onto her shoulder, pecking softly at her face. Vex shuddered, taking a deep breath as she tried to compose herself. “I want them back, Vax...I want my babies back…”

 

They sat there for a while, brother and sister, bird and girl, one mourning her lost children while the other could do nothing but try and fail to bring her comfort. 

 

Eventually, Vex went back to Whitestone. Vax followed her the entire way back, fighting her everytime she seemed to change her mind and tried to flee back into the woods, not returning to his Queen until he was sure she was home and was going to stay home.

But he was wrong. Vex had no home, once again. Whitestone was no longer home, it was just a place she and Percy lived together in, their hearts broken and frozen.

 

Home was long gone, taken away with their Yasha and Lucien, and she did not see it ever coming back.


	3. From the Ruins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! But we're still at it!

The tensions at Whitestone had reached a boiling point. In the months since the loss of the de Rolo twins, Percy and Vex's relationship had deteriorated to the point where it seemed almost impossible to imagine them as a happily married couple. They barely interacted anymore, and when they did, those interactions were formal. Clipped. Icy. They lived in the same building but were leading separate, miserable lives.

It reached its head the night prior to the anniversary of the twins' abduction. It wasn't all that surprising to Cassandra, but she'd had more than enough playing third wheel to a broken cart, as it were, and, though she understood to some degree the measure of their grief, Whitestone needed a functioning council. And Percy and Vex certainly didn't contribute any portion of functioning to the goings-on in the castle. But more than anything, she wanted her brother and sister-in-law back. Pale reflections of themselves, they bore more resemblance to poltergeists in the halls than living people.

Percy in particular was scaring her. After what she'd seen in his workshop months ago, he'd been acting off. Extremely formal, the perfect picture of a lord, with no emotions, nothing behind his eyes. There was no warmth there...it was as if he was one of his clockwork toys, moving and acting without any life.  
  
If this continued...she wasn't sure what would happen first. If Vex would leave again, not returning this time, or if Percy would do something dangerous and harmful to himself.   
  
Cassandra had had enough, and when she'd written to the other members of Vox Machina, asking for their assistance, her words were tinged with a hint of urgency. Something was going to break and she needed help stopping that.

That led to the present situation, with the remaining members of Vox Machina surrounding the couple, soft words dropping from Pike's mouth, a shadowed look on Scanlan's face, Keyleth shifting uncertainly and Grog. Grog who wasn't about to take Vex's pithy denials and Percy's stony, removed silence.   
  
"Ya know wot? You're both bein' mighty fuckin' stupid." He suddenly broke out over Pike's faltering statements. "And we're all bleedin' sick and tired of it."

Keyleth frowned a little, looking at Grog. It was true, but...they didn't need to say it straight out like that. Vex and Percy had lost their children, they'd earned the right to be distant and unhappy. "Grog..." she said quietly, reaching out to grab his arm .

"No, let him speak," Vex said, voiced clipped. "Go on, Grog. I'm sorry that our grief is so inconvenient and bothersome to you, but _please_ , continue."

Grog growled at Vex's retort. "Yer bein' fuckin' stupid. What'd you do? Invite whatever bastard fucker took 'em right on in to Tary's place?" He challenged. "Cause if that's the case, I'd kill you myself. But that's not it, is it? You’re just too caught up whinin' and moanin' and wallowin' that you can't see it ain’t your fault!"

Vex glared at Grog, crossing her arms. "You don't know what you're talking about. The only reason they were there in the first place was us...and it doesn't change the fact that they're _gone_ , does  it?"

Percy was still silent, jaw clenched tightly despite his seemingly impassive face, but Grog and Vex were too worked up to notice.

"Yeah, they're gone. Guess what? Trinket was there too, an' I don' see you blamin' him. Yer just beatin' on each other and on yourselves to avoid the fact that they _ain't comin' back_ . Like, _ever_."

Vex visibly flinched at that. It was the truth, of course. Their children were gone, likely dead, and they would never see them again. They would never know what happened to them, never know for sure who took them…

But to hear it said out loud like that made it seem so final. It killed any hope she still had.

"Get out," she said, voice low and icy.

"Yeah, I got no problem with tha', but you-" he pointed between the two of them threateningly. "Aren't goin' nowhere till you work this shit out."

She laughed, harsh and unpleasant. "What are you going to do, lock us in? I can pick locks, that won't work."

"Not if I stand outside the door. Have fun wi' tha'. C'mon Pike, Kiki, Scanlan. Let's go."

As Grog turned away, Pike leveled her gaze at Vex, just as unyielding as her goliath friend. They watched each other coolly for a moment before Pike followed Grog out, Scanlan at her side, his face drawn in judgement. That left only Keyleth, who wavered.

Keyleth looked at her two friends. Her brother and sister, who she knew were hurting, and who truly did need to talk. It hurt her that this was the option they had left.

“I'm sorry, Vex," she said quietly, before following the others out, closing the door behind her.

At the click of the latch, impossibly deafening in the silence of the room. The soft sound of Percy's rather forcible exhale accompanied it, but there was nothing else.

Vex glared at the door for a moment before trying to open it.  As expected, it didn't budge.  
"Dammit, Grog, you can't keep us locked in here! This is our house!"

"He can and will do whatever he likes. You know as well as I that he will stand there as long as it takes." Percy bit out.

She turned her glare on him. "Are you going to help me get out of here or not?"

"Frankly? No." He clipped the sentence short. "I have no desire to waste any more of my time futilely. We've done more than enough of that lately. No, I shall not."

"Fine. Be that way," she snipped back at him. "But I'm not going to sit by and just accept this."

"Have you considered that perhaps that's the lesson we're to learn, _dear_?"

Vex said nothing, trying the door a few more times before looking around the room for a window, another way of escape, _anything_.

Of course, there was nothing. With an angry growl of defeat, Vex slumped against the door, not looking at Percy.

"Why, _darling_ , it's rather funny that you of all people are just going along with this whole plan of theirs."

"Embrace it, Vex'ahlia. We. Are. Powerless." Each word was punctuated carefully, with bitter ire. Cruelly, he laughed. "Attempting something multiple times with similar results? That's madness, and I only wish I were mad."

"Very funny, coming from you," she shot back. "You refused to accept that kind of mentality for years, and now when that would _actually_ be useful, you just roll over and accept the terrible reality."

"You don't think I want to? You don't think that I haven't spent every waking moment the same way you have? Considering what happened, where they are, if they're alright, how I could possibly have allowed this to happen? They're gone. Our children are _dead_ , Vex'ahlia. They're dead. It's been a year. Our children are dead. If I were mad, at least I could pretend, but I can't. I can't. I see them _everywhere_ , I hear them _everywhere_ and every time I even _look_ at you I-" Percy's words strangled to a stop. "I have - I have to be rid of it all. Of them. I can't- I can't do this. I can't do this anymore. I can't-"

She fell silent, unable to look at him. It was impossible to imagine how happy they'd been over a year ago. They'd been so excited to visit Tary...the twins were so happy for their first trip out of Whitestone, to go someplace new…

"I think I prefer my madness to whatever it is you've become," she said quietly to herself. At least in her madness she still had hope.

"Me too." His voice was hollow.

"What are we even doing, Percy?" she said, voice flat. "We're both miserable. We should just..."

She couldn't bring herself to finish that thought.

"Just what?" It was a wretched sound.

She was silent, unable to look at the man she'd once loved. Still loved.

"....I blame myself, you know. The whole trip was my idea."

For the first time in months, Percy felt the hot burn of tears. He shook his head. "I convinced you to bring them with us. I didn't want to leave them behind. I'm the one at fault."

"I wanted to go out and explore with Tary. I was the one who said they'd be fine with Trinket," she responded, still unable to look at him. "If we'd taken them with us, or left more guards..."

"And I reassured you that what Trinket couldn't handle, the castle staff could." Despite the agonizing pain of it, Percy took in her bowed head, her form, made small as she curled in on herself, and what remained of his heart gave a weak beat.

"We should never have left them alone...they were always sneaking out of the nursery, we should have left extra guards, we should have--"

Her voice cracked and she curled in on herself further, feeling achingly empty.

"I want our babies back, Percy," she whispered.

"We couldn't have known. You can't do that to yourself, Vex, darling.It's not your fault." Impulsively, muscle memory taking over where his mind wasn't able to, Percy went to her, falling to his knees by her side. "Vex, Vex'ahlia, _Vex'ahlia_ -"

Vex looked up from the ball she'd curled into, tears streaming down her face. "Why them, Percy? They'd never hurt anyone, they were just children...!"

"I don't know. I don't rightly know. I can't help but fear that...that all of this is somehow because of something I've done. That this is some sort of punishment..." He was crying too, his vision bleary. "What if-?" Percy's voice hitched and broke. "I'm sorry, oh gods, Vex'ahlia I'm _sorry_."

" _Percival..._ ," she sobbed, finally breaking, collapsing against him.

What had she been doing, driving him away for all these months? They had nothing left...nothing but each other.

With everything left in him, Percy clung to Vex, pulling her securely to him, crying unrestrainedly into her hair as her tears soaked his vest. "Don't leave. Please don't leave. I can't- I can't do this without you, Vex'ahlia, gods..."

She clung to him, really holding him for the first time in months , crying against his chest. Gods, and she had wanted to leave, what was she _thinking_?

"I can't...I can't do this, Percy, not alone..please, _please_ don't lock yourself away again, I can't..."

"You're all that's left of my heart." He practically crushed her to his chest. "When you're gone, there's nothing left of me...Vex, there's nothing left. I think I died the day we lost them. I think I died-"

"I know I did," she choked out through the tears that didn't seem to stop. "First Vax, then our children...I have _nothing_ left, Percy, nothing but you, and...and you were slowly killing yourself, I couldn't watch that..."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't want to feel anything anymore, Vex if I were dead then it wouldn't hurt, it wouldn't hurt anymore and I'd be with them and they wouldn't be alone. What if? What if they're scared? What if they died afraid and in pain and-" Percy rambled frantically.

"Stop it," she snapped, voice sharp through her tears. "You don't think I haven't thought the same thing? Every night, I can't sleep because what if they're still out there? What if they're just...alone, and afraid and...and they died scared and we'll never _know..._!"

Almost like a slap, her words cut across him viscerally and he reared back from her for a moment as if stunned. "We won't. We won't know. We'll never know for sure. This is...this is... things will...Vex-"

"Things will be awful, forever, because we'll never know. They could be alive somewhere, they could be dead, and we'll _never know_." Her voice was hard, like steel, though it was telling that she hadn't truly stopped crying.

And that was the worst part, wasn't it? Not knowing what happened to Luci and Yasha. Knowing that, while they were likely dead, there was always a possibility that they were still alive out there, somewhere beyond her and Percy's reach.

If they knew for sure their children were dead...if there had been blood or torn clothes or, Pelor help them, bodies, then at least they'd _know_. They would be devastated, but they wouldn't be like they are now...one giving into the madness of denial, the other shutting out all emotions.

"We can't do this anymore, Percival. They're all right. We can't...we can't keep doing this, all we're doing is making ourselves feel worse. I don't know what we _should_ do, but it can't be this."

"I can't. I can't make myself believe it." Percy shook his head. "If I make myself believe it I will never be able to let it go, and I have to. I can't live like this anymore. You're right about that much. I just - Just let me hold you. Let that be enough for now."

If he started to imagine that they might be out there somewhere, he knew he would never stop searching, never rest until they were returned to his empty arms.

But Vex needed desperately to believe.

Without that hope, what did she have left? A broken marriage, a broken husband, a broken life with no children to hold…

She knew they were dead. Logically, it was the only outcome that made sense. Take a cub away from its mother too young, leave it alone and unable to care for itself, and it'll die, one way or another. But she wanted, against all logic and reason, to believe they were alive, that somebody had found them and was caring for them as she had for Trinket.

"I'm not asking you to believe. I don't even know why I still do," she admitted, burying her face in his chest, holding him tight. "I won't...I won't act on it. I won't leave and go chasing rumors that will end up leading nowhere. But you can't...you can't lock your heart away, Percy. I can't do this alone, I _need_ you."

"I'll try. I don't know any other way to be, Vex. After my family, after your brother...I don't want to lose you too." He took in her shattered expression as she leaned into him and knew that his own face mirrored it. Placing his hands in her hair, Percy let his thoughts race.

He'd been through too much in his short life, to be a father at little more than a quarter of a century, and then to have them ripped away from him so soon. To lose everything all over again, to be given a taste of what could be, a blissful two years. He should have known that it could only be followed by heartbreak. Suddenly terrified that she'd be sundered from him, he pulled Vex up to him, enfolding her desperately into his embrace. Vex held him tight, afraid to let go of him.

"You won't lose me. I'm not going anywhere...but we both have to be better. For them."

"Yes. Yes. For them." He paused. "I... I love you. Vex'ahlia, I love you."

"I  love you too, Percival," she said without hesitation as she rested her forehead against his. "I never stopped loving you."

"I'll love you forever. And I will love our children forever. I swear it."

They fell asleep like that, holding one another on the floor, slumped together. Several hours into the night, Percy jolted awake, still holding Vex. With all his fragile strength, he lifted her and went to the door. It opened without any difficulty, the hallway deserted. Hefting her in his arms Percy made his way to the room they used to share, the room he'd inhabited alone for so long and laid her gently atop the coverlet before lying down beside her pulling her close into him, their bodies fitted perfectly as always.

In the morning, the woke together, quiet but more comfortable than they'd been since it had happened. When he went to the stair, Vex tensed, but he put out a placating hand and she trusted him to go. When he came back up from the room, he found her in her study.

In his hand, was an offering.

An arrow.

 


End file.
